Untitled

In the early 1970s, Paul Sarkisian integrated collage with photorealistic painting, depicting objects such as newspapers and colored paper as though they were layered against a flat surface. In this work, he used as a background a reproduction photograph of boys at the Los Alamos Ranch School, by T. Harmon Parkhurst, the official photographer of the school. The illusionistic mail below includes a Parkhurst postcard from the New Mexico History Museum’s Photo Archives addressed to Richard Rudisell, the archive’s Curator of Photography. At left, a Christmas card inscribed to Mr. and Mrs. John Sommers refers to the Technical Director at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop. Sarkisian’s nod to his colleagues gives the piece a subtle autobiographical touch.